Logon problems in XP home appear out of nowhere

[KB]

I have a strange one. Just out of no where I attempt to logon to my windows XP home machine and get the error "The local policy of this machine prevents you from logging on interactively". I know how to fix this, but am clueless on how it got this way. Nothing was changed and nothing was installed. Anyone seen this lately?

 

[KB]

I am told this is a Windows Activation problem. My fiancee was using the machine and clicked "Remind me later" to the activation nags several times. Does it eventually lock you out completely if you don't activate?

 

[dclive]

I don't think the two are related. On an XP Pro machine (and other machines) this is a policy setting - you can go to Local Policy MMC and you can change who has the right to log in locally to the machine.

That isn't related to WPA.

Is your machine directly on the public internet? Do you have your XP SP2 (you ARE running SP2, right?) firewall turned on?